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Martha Mihalick at HarperCollins’s Greenwillow Books bought North American rights to a new fantasy trilogy from Rae Carson, who is currently writing the Fire and Thorns series for the children’s imprint. […]

Agent Holly Root at Waxman Leavell closed this deal, and said the new trilogy is “a sweeping and romantic fantasy” that follows a teenage girl whose magical ability to find gold puts her in a dangerous position during the American Gold Rush.

Well, my blogging friends, we are halfway through 2013 and I’ve gotten through almost 55 books. (wootie woot woot!) With me being a wee bit over 50% of my goal of 100 book-a-roos in 2013, I think I shall have a fav books mid-year edition. Mainly because I’ve read some awesome books and haven’t been able to write reviews yet. Not sure if because I am lazy or busy with work… hmmm…

Regardless, below are my favorite Thus-Far read books that were published in 2013. This is also me book pimping these onto to you lovely readers because they are crazy good.

Favorite Book Thus Far of 2013

Dark Triumph by R.L. LaFevers – this is gorgeous and rich. I love LaFever’s writing and her characters in the entire His Fair Assassin’s series are breathtaking. From shy and sweet to spicy and fierce these female pro-tags became my bffl faces while I was reading.

The Cadet of Tildor by Alex Lidell – This was a fun book and surprised me. For having a badass female pro-tag, she’s very feminine at the same time and relatable. I feel like usually you don’t have that balance and it was nice to see. The switching narrators also allowed me to stay more engaged with the story and the fact that the romance is subtle, second to the main story, is refreshing.

Favorite Dystopian Book Thus Far of 2013

Reboot by Amy Tintera – this one is hard for me because I actually rated Prodigy by Marie Lu higher. But I think when it comes down to which book is actually better all around, Reboot wins. It’s definitely a more mature book, with more engaging characters and more thought provoking themes. Buuuut, Marie Lu’s writing, while def geared towards a younger age range, engulfs you and tears you through a fast paced storyline that has you reading it in 12 hours (guilty!). So just… read both, yeah?

Twelve-year-old Callum Hunt has grown up knowing three rules by heart. Never trust a magician. Never pass a test a magician gives you. And never let a magician take you to the Magisterium. Callum is about to break all the rules. And when he does, his life will change in ways he can’t possibly imagine.

Book One in the Magisterium Series – potentially a FIVE BOOK series.

The Magisterium series is a five-book series of fantasy novels, one book for each year of Call’s life between twelve and seventeen, cowritten with Holly Black (author of The Spiderwick Chronicles and the Modern Faerie Tale series) about Call Hunt and his adventures. The first book, The Iron Trial, will be published by Scholastic Books in 2014. Holly and I also have an option deal to produce the film along with Constantin Features.

I am going to give everyone a heads up… this review will be snarktastic.

So I’ve had some time to step away from this book and allow my feelings to mellow out a bit. But sadly, my rating is not changing from a One Star. I know a lot of people ohemgee-loved-this-book but I have to, respectively, disagree. Please please don’t hate me for this review.

Be warned: There are spoilers aplenty in this.

And I apologize in advance for my swearing. *Sowwy*

Alright:

What, in all that is good and holy in this world, the f**k was Meadows thinking with this disaster of book? I don’t think I’ve read something so disorganized as this plot or as weak and pathetic as a main a character since 50 Shades of Bullshit landed in my unknowing lap. And the worst part about my hatred of this book was that I gave Incarnate FOUR STARS! Four freaking stars. Talk about fab to drab in 400 pages. Good lord I would rather torture myself with entire 1500 page Matched series again before I would submit to reading Asunder a second time. It was painfully awful. And I can actually say PAINFULLY because I rolled my eyes so many times while I went through chapters of this book I gave myself a headache. A self-induced, eye rolling headache. If that doesn’t scream “bad book” I don’t know WHAT does.

To be fair, I will list my grievances in a civilized and decent manner and feel free to argue against any of the following points:

1.) As expressed clearly in my review of Incarnate, the world building was extremely lacking. But I think I had tricked myself into thinking that it was acceptable in Book One because the concept was so new. Perhaps my WSOD meter was just catching up? Now though, the newness has worn off and I am left with this jumble of words and bullshit that is attempting to congeal it’s self into some semblance of a working plot. For example: There’s only one effing city in the whole world (planet? land? Earth? Universe?) and it can house a million people? And yet you can walk from one side of the city to the other in a day. A city where every single “soul” has their own house, with their own yard? Riiight. OK yeah that makes PERFECT F*CKING SENSE. And this glorious city that just sits on this volcano just “happens” to have the right amount of houses with walls that, excuse me, pulse? Cool, nbd, awesome. Let me just segway into my next point on that creepy shit..

2.)Sooo… our “bad guy” is actually the wall that pulses? Who is actually Janan? Who is a god but USED to be a real person? And he’s the reason that everything happens in this god-forsaken world/land/planet?

(If you don’t get the sarcasm in the points above, shame on you. Just stop reading now)

Ok so besides the completely illogical world that is never fully described and the creepy as f*ck wall/bad guy/god thingy, we could almost save this book at a couple stars if we had a solid main character and a good romance. But alas, that was not to be found in this darling book. Proceed on, oh bitchy rant!

3.) Ana. Young, innocent, naive, newsoul Ana. How I wish you had one ounce of redeeming qualities in you. Instead, if I saw you on the streets, I would throw a rock at you too, you stupid fickle twat. Now here is my biggest beef with Meadows at the moment: WHY DID YOU CHANGE ANA SO MUCH? Yes, she was indecisive and and yes, she kind of made no sense in her decisions making, but at least she was endearing! You tried too hard and tried to accomplish so much with her and it just fell so flat. Everything became soo… coincidental. She just “happens” to have the key that “happens” to be the clue to unlocking this whole messed up Janan crap? I can see how Ana was trying to be this Grand Savior and all that but she just.. wasn’t. She’s weak. Annoying, self-centered and weak. And she has a wrapped and twisted review on reality, I feel sorry for the poor thing. I mean come on, she would NEVER confront Sam on anything. Ana was so terrified of making him mad or uncomfortable or upset she never DID anything. She was so forgiving (practically instantaneously) that every time she “got mad” I pictured a 2 year old stomping her feet for 30 seconds than moving onto the next toy. And her morals went out the window. She wanted to wait to have sex in Incarnate but she was like a two dollar hussy in Asunder. Ugh.

4.) And don’t even get me STARTED on Sam and their “romance”. Seriously. Don’t.

I could really go on and on.. but I’ll save myself a hand cramp and your most likely bleeding ears from my never-ending spiel of how disappointed I am with this book. I will read the third, purely because I did enjoy the first so much and because I adore Jodi Meadows. But lord help me if it’s as twisted and stupid as the second.